


Ten Years to the Bar

by HGLowlife



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Levi checking out Eren across the bar, M/M, Past Levi/Erwin Smith, Slight Angst?, idk what this is tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 19:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12153735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HGLowlife/pseuds/HGLowlife
Summary: Levi made a promise with Erwin to return to their favourite bar once they were all grown up and proper. Not much had changed ten years later, save for a few defining factors.





	Ten Years to the Bar

**Author's Note:**

> In which I took all my favourite concepts from Stargazing and tossed them into a oneshot (a.k.a my excuse to write some half-assed ereri AND get rid of unnecessary feelings.)

Rock was not the same as it used to be, Levi noted as he ruminated over his pint by the bar, a square structure in the middle of the massive interior of the venue. Poorly designed, as it had been when it opened ten years ago, but it seemed no one had thought to renovate it since. Loud speakers, installed in every corner of the open-spaced hall, played some new-age indie band Levi had never heard of. Modern furniture, or at least it had been modern once - trends moved too fast for him to keep up with these days - prided the floor, though a wide section was kept clean in the middle, leading new-arriving customers straight to the bar. Contrary to what one would think of a place like this, hip and loaded with cheap booze, it didn’t have a scent to it, but appeared sterile and in lack of personality.

Levi checked his phone, it was slipping past eight, and he glared at the screen, angry at himself for having come out there. It shouldn’t surprise him that Erwin was late, and with that notion he wondered what else hadn’t changed, and more regret washed over him as he waited.

Across the bar, on the other side of the square, a group of backpackers sat, already a few drinks in, discussing their plans for the evening. After a long day of seemingly _not_ sightseeing, they proclaimed their intentions of hitting up a famous nightclub in the downtown area, and Levi asked himself not for the first time what in the world he’d been doing in a place like this to begin with. Sure, he’d been a wild 20-something once, but never quite like _that._

And then a lanky, pale kid, with brown hair divided in the middle that looked too conspicuous to be anything but intentional, shuffled over to the group. He met Levi’s eyes, his were green, or blue, Levi couldn’t quite tell in that lighting, and he smiled sheepishly. Levi didn’t return the smile, instead he took a sip from his beer and stared into the screen of his phone pretending to be occupied.

“Jaeger, you joining us?” asked one of the boys, a long-faced, dark blonde smartass, or at least he looked like a smartass.

The skinny kid propped his elbows on the counter and leaned over it, gaining the attention of one of the bartenders, before he replied with a laugh. “I don’t think so. Not my scene.” And then he looked at Levi again.

Levi wasn’t sure what to make of it, or whether there was anything to make out in the first place, but he didn’t have time to think it over any further because the sound of a dark, gruff “hello, Levi,” emerged behind his right ear, and he turned around to face the problem of the night.

“Erwin,” he said, and the other man, unbelievably tall, and blonde, short-haired, aged with grace, chuckled. In that instant, at the sight of this man, Levi’s stomach dropped and all of his rehearsed lines, prepared with great care over the last few weeks, vanished from his memory.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Is that so?” Levi may have sacrificed a chunk of his pride showing up there, but he wasn’t going to make things easy.

“You carry your age well,” said Erwin and sat down on a stool next to him. “I’ll take a Guinness,” he said to the barman. It was the second thing that hadn’t changed, and Levi had a premonition that _nothing_ would be different and he really was just wasting time.

“Can’t say the same for you,” Levi commented, and although it wasn’t exactly true, because Erwin had gone from a good-looking youth to a _handsome_ man, matured like a fine, French wine, surely followed by suitors wherever he went, he wasn’t eager to stroke Erwin’s ego any further.

“And your personality remains,” Erwin said with an infuriating smile.

“So,” said Levi, awaiting some kind of explanation as to why he’d been called out all the way to this shitty hostel pub, as if he didn’t remember the promise they’d made all those years ago.

“So,” said Erwin, and it had a sense of finality to it, one Levi didn’t appreciate, as if this was a last goodbye he’d not been invited to, didn’t _want_ to attend, “here we are.”

But Levi couldn’t outright ask, because he’d known Erwin long enough, knew that if he did it would be admitting he had some kind of, any kind of, anticipation - _hope -_ that something would happen. As to whether anything would, well, the evening was still young.

“Tell me how you’ve been,” said Erwin, with that honey-sweet tone he’d always used when seducing, his thick eyebrows slightly knotted and pupils firm on Levi, giving the impression that he had his full attention.

“Same old,” said Levi, thinking that this was a mistake after all, because he couldn’t think of a single clever thing to say, something to throw Erwin off, which of course was impossible because Erwin didn’t _do_ off.

“Don’t tell me you’re still in that office job.” There it was.

“And if I am?” At that point, Levi figured he’d do well to throw his drink in Erwin’s face and walk off, easing his grief by ending everything prematurely. But he didn’t move.

Erwin had one arm on the counter, supporting his chin with his hand, leaning forward, a tad too suggestively for Levi’s liking. “As long as you’re happy,” he said.

Levi snorted and looked away, his eyes wandering, behind the bar and to the people working there, running back and forth pouring shots for eager party-goers, to the newly-arrived couple shyly ordering their first drinks, to the tall, skinny, brown-headed boy laughing with his friends. “Can’t complain.”

“I’ve got to say, I missed your brooding.”

“I’m not-” Levi’s protest was cut off with a single look, the cock of an eyebrow and a smirk, and he noticed then the power Erwin still had over him. After all this time.

It wasn’t difficult to understand. Erwin had always known how to handle Levi, better than anyone, better than Levi could handle Levi, dealing with his moodiness and grouchy attitude with as simple a thing as a friendly smile. And that smile was present now, on Erwin’s lips, along with the intense stare of his eyes, which made Levi lose his train of thought. It wasn’t difficult to see why Erwin had attracted him from the very first day.

A soft chuckle escaped Erwin’s mouth, slipped over his lower lip, deep and seasoned, and there was a tug in Levi’s chest, a drop between his ribs, his lungs squeezing together. He’d expected it to be strange, meeting again after all those years, but he’d never expected it to be _painful_.

“What about you?” Levi asked after a prolonged pause, in which Erwin had sipped from his beer and taken in the venue with his eyes. “How have you been?”

“Busy,” Erwin said, unsurprisingly because being the CEO of a non-profit organisation could only be a taxing job at the least, “do you think this place has changed?” Classic Erwin, leading the conversation away from himself.

“Looks even shittier now.”

“Yes, it’s hard to imagine we used to hang out in a place like this.”

The green-eyed boy had gone bored of his friends, and bent over the counter to whisper in the bartender’s ear. When he pulled back, he grinned with an intensity that seemed to light up the place. And then - he looked at Levi, a third time, and Levi averted his eyes quickly, though he knew he’d been caught staring. Against his will, his gaze fell back on the boy, for a brief moment, and the boy placed a finger over his lips and winked, indicating a non-existent secret between them.

Not wanting to let Erwin off the hook that easily, Levi turned his attention back to his ex-boyfriend. “I heard your wedding got called off.”

Amusement was not what Levi had wanted to see on Erwin’s face. “Not where did you hear that?” he asked.

Busted. “Instagram? Fuck, I don’t know how news travels these days.” Pretending like he’d not kept in touch with their old friends, Hanji, Mike, _Petra,_ for the sole reason of keeping tabs on his former lover, called them up once or twice a year under the pretences of asking how they’d been. Never bringing Erwin up by name, of course, save for that first time, and Levi had learned his lesson fast because he could never forget the uproar his question had caused on the other end of the line.

Erwin, unfazed, shrugged. “You’re correct. We separated on good terms.”

And now he was there. And the more Levi observed the man across from him, well-shaped and self-assured, the more he realised how different their lives had been. That, despite how neither of them had changed, everything else had, the times, the world, the _feelings,_ and although Levi could see it, could remember the romance, fierce and raw and absolute, hauling him along, long after they’d shared their final kisses, he knew that there was no going back, no matter how much he might have wanted to.

Levi snickered into his glass, it was a hollow and ugly laugh, realising just how dumb he’d been in believing that anything could come out of a meeting like this.

But a hand, big and strong, inched closer, landed on his thigh with unwavering conviction, and Levi was sure he’d lose his self-respect in that moment.

_“Have you missed me?”_

What saved him were two big, green, no, turquoise, fuck, he didn’t know, didn’t care, eyes staring, filled to the brim with curiosity, right in his peripheral vision, and though he might have imagined it, it was enough for Levi to maintain his dignity. “Not really,” he said and slapped Erwin’s hand away.

Finally, Erwin broke his eyes off Levi, looked to his side, defeated. “It seems I have come in vain.”

“Seems like it.”

Erwin lowered his head. He still wore that infuriating smile, and it grated Levi to know that he’d never be able to communicate exactly how he’d felt for so many years. Erwin would never learn the true extent of his actions, how his reckless behaviour had led them _there,_ not to a happy reunion but a dead-end. “I suppose this is goodbye, then.”

“You got it,” said Levi, and while the knot in his stomach remained, his shoulders felt lighter than they had been in a long time.

After placing a note on the counter, Erwin got up from his seat, drink only half-finished, put his thousand-dollar coat back on, and gave Levi a closing look. He leaned in and hummed in Levi’s ear, “you do realise that poor kid you’ve been eyeing all night is probably ten years your junior, right?” And placed a warm kiss on his cheek, before walking away.

As always, Erwin got the last word, the last _win._

But when he’d left, strolled off in his stupor of richness and importance, and Levi had managed to quell the heat in his cheeks by downing the rest his beer, he looked across the bar once more, and saw that the group was gone, save for a single individual, left, much like himself, to his own devices, moping, although happily so, judging by complacent look on his face, at the counter. And their eyes met once again.

“Another drink?” asked a small girl, blonde with big, innocent eyes, baby-faced, and Levi wondered if she was even old enough to work there.

“Yes,” he said without taking his eyes off the boy on the other side. “I’ll take a whiskey.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I just had to get this out of my system before I forgot. I will go back and finish Stargazing now!!
> 
> /Might/ do a part two.


End file.
